4 November

Events

• 1576 - Eighty Years' War: In Belgium, Spain captures Antwerp (after three days the city was nearly destroyed).
• 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Johnsonville - At Johnsonville, Tennessee, troops under the command of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest bombard a Union supply base with artillery and destroy millions of dollars in materiel.
• 1869 - The first issue of scientific journal Nature is published.
• 1884 - U.S. presidential election, 1884: Democrat Grover Cleveland defeats Republican James G. Blaine in a very close contest to win the first of his non-consecutive terms.
• 1921 - The Sturmabteilung or SA is formally formed by Adolf Hitler
• 1922 - In Egypt, British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men find the entrance to King Tutankhamen's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
• 1924 - Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming elected as the first woman governor in the United States.
• 1928 - At Park Central Hotel in Manhattan, Arnold Rothstein, New York City's most notorious gambler, is shot to death over a poker game.
• 1939 - World War II: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the United States Customs Service to implement the Neutrality Act of 1939, allowing cash-and-carry purchases of weapons by belligerents.
• 1942 - World War II: Second Battle of El Alamein - Disobeying a direct order by Adolf Hitler, General Field Marshall Erwin Rommel leads his forces on a five-month retreat.
• 1956 - Soviet troops invade Hungary to crush the Hungarian revolution that started on October 23. Thousands are killed, more are wounded and nearly a quarter million leave the country.
• 1948 - T.S. Eliot wins the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• 1952 - U.S. presidential election, 1952: Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower defeats Democrat Adlai Stevenson.
• 1960 - Filming wraps on The Misfits, starring Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable (this was the last film either performed in).
• 1970 - Vietnam War: Vietnamization - The United States turns control of the air base in the Mekong Delta to South Vietnam.
• 1979 - Iran hostage crisis begins: Iranian radicals, mostly students, invade the United States embassy in Tehran and take 90 hostages (63 of whom are American). They demanded that the United States send the former shah back to Iran to stand trial.
• 1980 - U.S. presidential election, 1980: Republican challenger Ronald Reagan defeats incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter by a wide margin.
• 1993 - Jean Chrétien takes office as Prime Minister of Canada.
• 1995 - After attending a peace rally in Tel Aviv's Kings Square, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin is mortally wounded by a right-wing Israelis gunman (he later died on the operating table at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv).
• 2001 - Hurricane Michelle hits Cuba destroying crops and thousands of homes.

Births

• 1602 - Otto von Guericke, inventor of a vacuum pump
• 1744 - Johann Bernoulli, III, Swiss mathematician
• 1765 - Pierre Girard, French mathematician
• 1874 - Aleksandr Vasilevich Kolchak, Russian military commander
• 1879 - Will Rogers, American humorist and entertainer († 1935)
• 1912 - Vadim Salmanov, composer
• 1914 - Martin Balsam, actor († 1996)
• 1916 - Walter Cronkite, news broadcaster
• 1918 - Art Carney, actor († 2003)
• 1929 - Doris Roberts, actress
• 1923 - Freddy Heineken, Dutch businessman
• 1937 - Loretta Swit, American actress
• 1944 - Scherrie Payne, singer; member of The Supremes
• 1946 - Robert Mapplethorpe, American photographer († 1989)
• 1946 - Laura Bush, First Lady of the United States
• 1955 - Matti Vanhanen, prime minister of Finland
• 1961 - Ralph Macchio, actor
• 1969 - P. Diddy, American rap musician
• 1969 - Matthew McConaughey, American actor
• 1972 - Luis Figo, Portuguese football star

Deaths

• 1652 - Jean de La Faille, French mathematician
• 1698 - Erasmus Bartholin, Danish mathematician
• 1847 - Felix Mendelssohn, German composer
• 1870 - Comte de Lautreamont, poet, writer
• 1924 - Gabriel Fauré, French composer
• 1928 - Arnold Rothstein, gambler
• 1930 - Buddy Bolden, American jazz musician
• 1955 - Cy Young, American baseball player
• 1956 - Art Tatum, American jazz musician
• 1986 - Kurt Hirsch, German mathematician
• 1995 - Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel
• 2000 - Ian Sneddon, British mathematician

Holidays

• Italy - celebration of the victory on WWI, the day of the Armed Forces
• Bahá'í Faith - Feast of Qudrat (Power) - First day of the 13th month of the Bahá'í Calendar

See Also: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

Referenced By